Published on 12, July, 2020
Bit of a weird one this - but has anyone else had a therapist (on the nhs) who is a bit bullying? My son switched therapist because he wasn’t making any progress (after almost a year of appointments) and his therapist seemed to have run out of any ideas to help him. We thought it was odd because he was mainly needing help with ocd and as far as we understand there are fairly recognised treatments for ocd, but his therapist didn’t give him any good strategies to help him, and his ocd hadn’t improved at all. So in the end we requested a change of therapist as he was beginning to feel that if this therapist couldn’t help at all then he was doomed to always be trapped with the distressing symptoms of ocd.
So he was allocated a new therapist, which we were all pleased and hopeful about. However this new therapist always upsets him. She is incredibly pushy and forceful in a way that makes my son feel really anxious. He’s only had 3 or 4 appointments with her and she’s already demanding huge steps from him that he finds incredibly intimidating. And when he tells her that he doesn’t feel ready for that yet she says ‘if you don’t want to have therapy then just tell me’ - giving the impression of ‘it’s my way (at a quick pace!) or the highway’. Today she accused me (through him) of writing his texts for him - saying it ‘wasn’t his voice’ she could ‘hear’ in the texts - even though he wrote the texts, as I would never tell him what to say to his own therapist! He has selective mutism and at times when he was at school I’ve HAD to speak on his behalf because he couldn’t talk at all, and I’ve always hated having to do that for him, but often he needed me to to represent him and get his needs met. So because we have a history of me reluctantly HAVING to do that in the past I feel incredibly offended that anyone would suggest that I would speak for my son now in this way, and not allow him his own voice. I’ve spent the last 20 years gently encouraging him to have his own voice when at all possible - the last thing I want to do is ‘put words in his mouth’ in his messages to his therapist.
I feel this therapist is using a misogynist trope of the controlling mother, and in the process demeaning my son by inferring he couldn’t word his own texts It’s so offensive, and when he said she was wrong about it she didn’t accept it but kept on about it. At the end of the call he came and told me about it and he was really upset about it (as was I). He felt she was accusing him of lying about the texts, and my son is scrupulously honest and to be accused of not telling the truth was very upsetting for him.
He’s felt really unhappy and stressed after every appointment he’s had with her. We can’t ask for another therapist as we’ve only just done that. So what do we do? My son needs help so much but this therapist is rushing him at a pace he can’t cope with, and her tone is verging on bullying. What a mess.
Has anyone else experienced anything like this? We don’t what to do. We both feel dreadful.
My husband had a really bad therapist on the NHS, they only let you have a 6 week block as well although that was a blessing in disguise so he could get rid of her! He got vibes that she was a recent retiree doing some volunteering she gave him no strategies and whenever he tried to talk about work (because that’s what’s been causing him stress) she would always shut him down and say he wasn’t allowed to talk about work. Now he sees a private therapist once or twice a month that his friend recommended. He can’t afford to go every week but once a month with someone good is better than nothing or someone useless every week. She was recommended by his friend who’s been seeing her a long time
It’s exhausting navigating all this isn’t it? You wait an age to get help, and then you finally get it and it’s no help (or worse than no help). I have to say my son has been let down by the ‘system’ countless times throughout his young life. At times we’ve all felt both ill and heartbroken with the stress of it all. These days we just try to limit the damage the lack of help does to us by attempting (in a buddhist type way) to reduce our attachment to the HOPE of the ‘system’ actually helping us. Right from when my son started school it’s felt like a battle to get him help, and in the end we realised that the battle was in itself harming us all.
my therapist - that I accessed through the nhs although is outsourced to a private provider - has been surprisingly helpful. I just wish I could somehow get my son to see her too. But we just can’t afford to pay a private therapist. I hope your husband is starting to feel better x